An Unexploded Shell Inside a Cell [Open]

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She thought her life would be different by now, but she's a prisoner again. Voluntary, she guesses, which makes it a little bit different than the first time. At least she can blink on her own this time. Not that she's using her body to do much good.

Ironically, she almost always looked better when she was a more total prisoner. Without her makeup and hair clips and changes of clothes to arrange herself into some approximation of health, without even a mirror to confirm her suspicions, she looks a wreck. Dark circles line her reddened eyes; her hair is unbrushed and falls in tangled clumps over her face; chapped, bloodied lips and fingernails bitten down to the flesh speak to her uneasy transition back into captivity.

Eva's given up all attempts to look 'okay'. She ripped a man's face open with her bare fingers. She's been a long road away from 'okay' for a while now, but she spent too long mistaking her anger and stubbornness for strength and resilience to recognize it. She's wised up now.

She really wants a drink right now. Instead she has some books - selected poems by Pablo Neruda and an anthology of poetry by women poets in the Andes - and a pillow and blanket. She's curled up on the cot with the former book in her hand, but drifting in and out of sleep. Her breath comes lazy and heavy as she alternately reads, dreams, and watches the door to the brig with heavy-lidded eyes, looking for nothing.

Comments

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Kaya understood her not being on the level as Marco: before knowing who she was, Kaya had made a distinction of brothers between Billy and Sokka. She had to be sure at the time that Sokka not be second fiddle to Billy, but one she knew who she was, it was ok.

"Marco can handle the worst parts, he's your son," Kaya said and meant it, making a face though because it was still Marco. "But I'll still take on the burdens you give me, because I care about you. I want you to be able to talk to me as candidly as you'll allow. Don't understimate me: there's a lot I've seen."

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She puts a hand through the bars and strokes Kaya's hair. "I'm not underestimating you, dear. Not at all. But it's the way these things have to be."

Kaya, not being a parent, won't understand that deep in her core, but maybe she can accept that Eva sees her virtue coming from self-sacrifice.

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

"I know, I know, Kaya said, and she did, really. If she had done what she had an idea Eva had, she would likely have done the same thing, maybe even to a more severe degree. "I just don't like the idea of you suffering, if I'm honest about it."

She sighs. "I should probably get back to med bay soon. Still so many people to treat, and things are getting pretty senseless there."

At least there was Nokosi.

[vissernone.livejournal.com]

She nods. "Alright. You go do that. Don't work yourself to death, though."

She really does worry that not everyone on the ship puts their own needs as high up the priority list as they should.

"And thank you for visiting."

[kaya-waterwave.livejournal.com]

Kaya smiled. "I'll do my best, but there are a lot of people there. I'll be there for a very long time."

She was definitely right about that: Kaya had a tenedency a lot of the time to put the needs of others before her own. She didn't mind it much.

"Of course. Next time you see me, I hope you're in a better spot though. Just...please don't punish yourself unnecessarily."